Steele Brand

It's not a good strategy, but this is not Darius running off so he can fight another day.

There's wisdom to doing that.

But in this case, Romans have no shortage of people who are willing to die in battle.

But what's interesting about this battle, the Battle of Simtinum, is Sodecius Muses now effectively killed himself in battle, and that side of the battle is not going well.

Quintus Fabius Maximus has the foresight and the wisdom.

He's holding the line on the other.

He peels off a part of the rear of his forces, basically turns it into a reserve.

and sends them to go reinforce Publius Decius Musis forces.

And then he sends it, he peels off another portion to go and assist the cavalry and hit the Samnites in the rear.

And then he slowly doggedly approaches the Samnite camp, but as he's like wiping out the forces and he prohibits his men from sacking the camp, that's really hard to do, right?

really, really hard to do.

That shows you this commander knows, like he has ironclad control of his men.

And there are examples, manliest Torquatus, he executes his own son for disobeying his orders.

This is how ironclad the Romans saw authority.

But there's just one example of one guy and he's just one out of a dozen and that dozen has other dozens.

And so I think the point that Livy makes is Alexander's got to live.

He's got to live.

No Roman commander needs to live.

We can lose a Publius Deciusmus.

We could even lose a Fabius.